The privatization of military services is a worldwide business worth $200 billion a year. PMCs are an enormous part of this economy, offering "products" from logistics (such as building and managing military camps and prisons) to strategic support (radar and surveillance) to open combat and special sabotage missions. PMC corporations are based globally, and recruit heavily in the global south.

It is advantageous for governments to hire PMCs. As private corporations, they are less accountable to the public, or to military law. Many contracts do not need approval by (US) Congress, and protect PMCs from civil prosecution. Also, the death of PMC employees does not have as great an impact on public opinon as does the death of soldiers. In Iraq, there have been as many as 2,000 PMC employees killed to date.
The relationship between enlisted soldiers and private contractors has changed dramatically over the last decade. During Gulf War 1, 1 in 100 miltary actors was a PMC employee. Currently in Iraq, it is likely that 1 in 6 are PMCs. The "coalition of the willing" had become the "coalition of the billing."

In countries such as Colombia, conditions for "good business" are ensured by PMCs- in cooperation with the Colombian military and US armies, police, cattle producers, narco-traffickers, paramilitaries, the CIA, and the DEA. These ever-shifting coalitions are enacted to undermine campesino organizations, unions and unionizing efforts, and social movements; as well as the armed insurgency. For example, transnational corporations work with paramilitary groups to crush union organizing efforts and kill union activists; or PMCs conducting militarized crop-dusting operations against coca plantations also deliberately destroy the food crops of small farmers. These and other actions have displaced more than 2.5 million people.

A version of this project will be shown in the exhibition „Mapquest“, at PS122, New York City
September 16-October 9, 2006
Opening reception September 16, 5-7pm

Attachements

English Documents:

• »A war of attrition such as that in Nicaragua is much more effective«
• „The Privatization of War“

German Documents:

• Kleine konterrevolutionäre Armee stand by
• Das Unternehmen Krieg
• Caracas im Visier
• Tod aus Kolumbien
• Die neuen Söldner
• Venezuela am militärischen Kreuzweg
• Die Privatisierung des Krieges
• Privatisierung von Militäraufgaben
• Militärunternehmen im Irak – Die private Seite des Krieges
• Der Krieg im Irak und die Armee der Privaten
• Irak: Die Stunde der Sekundanten
• Tummelplatz für Söldner aus aller Welt

Spanish Documents:

• El negocio de la guerra (descarga pdf gratis)
• El negocio de la guerra
• La Privatización de las Guerras
• La empresa guerra
• La guerra ya no es para instalar otro modelo económico: ella es el modelo
• Estrategias contrarevolucionarias de Nicaragua a Venezuela.
• »Es mucho más efectiva una guerra de desgaste, como la de Nicaragua«
• Grupos paramilitares actúan en Venezuela para crear un movimiento en contra de la revolución
• Venezuela ante la encrucijada militar
• »Paras cuentan con apoyo de un sector de la GN y Ejército«
• Hugo Chávez y Dario Azzellini sobre paramilitares, Barinas 2008
• „El Paramilitarismo supuestamente desmovilizado en Colombia se encuentra en Venezuela“
• Mercenarios y nuevas guerras

• La privatización de la guerra: Paramilitarismo y las empresas militares privadas
• „Los ejércitos privados no necesitan permisos especiales“
• El lado privado de la guerra y el ejemplo de Irak
• El lado privado de la guerra y el ejemplo de Irak
 (II)

Italian Documents:

• L'azienda guerra
• La guerra ormai non è per imporre un altro modello economico: è il modello

• Il Venezuela dinanzi al dilemma militare
• La guerra si privatizza

Portugues Documents:

• A Guerra no Século XXI